


Not all that glitters is blood

by traumschwinge



Series: Not all that glitters is blood [2]
Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Established Relationship, Ficlet Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-16 01:18:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2250489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traumschwinge/pseuds/traumschwinge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>20 years. 23 victims. Looking back, it's been a busy time. Looking forward, now that Charles knows about all of it, it still is. There is a lot to rebuild, if it can ever be rebuild. </p>
<p>A collection of the ficlets I wrote for the AU started in "The murderer in your bed"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Two years before

Charles slowly turned the key in the lock. He nodded to his partner Moira. There was no sound in the room on the other side. He carefully pulled the door open, keeping his cover and allowing Moira a free shot if there should be danger waiting for them.

Degree by degree he pulled the door open. Then, at about 25 degrees, it suddenly got harder to pull as he met some kind of resistance. Charles tried to free the door from where ever it had caught with a sudden pull.

There was a noise as if a string had broken, followed by the whizzing of something heavy flying through the air. It ended with a splash, a sigh, then nothing.

Charles blanched.

Together with the equally white faced Moira he opened the door entirely. Charles was shaking now.

The room was empty, save for a small side table at the wall to the left and a chair opposite the door. There had been someone sitting on the chair when he had opened the door, Charles realized. Moira next to him sounded like she was going to be sick.

The body sitting on the chair--or what was left of the body anyway--had been smashed with what looked like a big bucket full of stones. There was blood on the wall, the chair, the bucket the floor. The body looked like after a car crash except those victims rarely were tortured before they died. Charles tried not to take too much details in. He couldn't help but notice the bucket had been on a pendulum and attached to the door there was a thin string with a bolt tied to the other end.

A cell phone rang. For a moment, Charles was disoriented, overwhelmed by the crime scene before him. It took him until the sixth ring before he picked up the cell phone on the side table with his gloved hands and put the caller on speaker.

"Hello?"

"Hello, my dear Detective. Well now, how does it feel to kill an innocent person? Pretty good, right?"

 

 


	2. Six months before

Charles stared at his cellphone. This message didn’t make any sense. When he’d seen the messenger’s id on his lock screen, he’d thought of the worst. Usually, he would get what that sick bastard considered an invitation to play or some gory, badly lit photo. All of them had, while cryptic as to the where and when and how, been very straight forward.

This message now, on the other hand, was just plain weird. It wasn’t even cryptic. Charles shook his cell phone in the irrational hope that would change the message to something that would make sense again. Nothing happened. And why would it. Irrational hopes never got fulfilled.

>>We’re out of salt.<< the message still read. Charles squinted. Was there any hidden meaning to this he just couldn’t see?

>>Then put the fucking knife back and go buy some!<< Charles replied after a while. That sicko had never liked it if he hadn’t responded within five minutes. It might give him ideas if Charles let him wait for too long. He slammed his phone down on the desk. Although he got back to work then, he still glared at the phone from time to time, daring it to announce yet another message.

 

It took Erik all of his self-control not to jump when he felt his phone, his other phone, vibrate in his pocket instead of having his normal cell announce an incoming message with the standard beep. He’d just left the house and had gotten into his company car. Confused, he took the phone out of his pocket. If this is here, he thought, that means my regular cell is in my briefcase, which means…

Erik blanched. Had he just…? He opened the message. >>Then put the fucking knife back and go buy some!<< it read. He recognized Charles’ number. With a low thud his head hit the steering wheel. He just barely missed the horn.

Such a damn idiot. Erik was such a damn fucking idiot. This, things like this, where exactly why he should just go ahead and tell Charles.

For the entirety of his trip to work, Erik was tense. How could Charles not figure out what had happened and why he’d gotten such a domestic little message from a serial killer. For sure there would be police waiting for him when he’d arrive at work.

But nothing happend. He didn’t even hear from Charles until lunch, when his husband told him that he would be going home soon and if he should buy something on his way.

>>Just salt and whatever you want me to cook for dinner. ILU<< Erik replied.

He hadn’t considered what meaning Charles could take from that and the earlier message. Throughout the evening and night, Charles was very jumpy. He even reminded Erik that as soon as he would notice something unusual, he should call. Apparently, Charles was now considering Erik’s second identity as a stalker on top of being a serial killer now.

 

 


	3. Six weeks after

Charles watched Erik with the knife. He was lounging at the kitchen table, a case file strewn about the table in front of him. Erik was making dinner, which always involved a lot of cutting and slicing. It possessed an odd kind of fascination for Charles to watch his for-some-reason-still husband work with knifes. The first few evenings, he hadn’t been able to stand watching Erik, knowing what else he had cut up with knives in his life. But that had soon ended and now Charles spend most of the time Erik was cooking in or at least close to the kitchen, watching his husband.

Erik with a knife in his hands looked serene like Charles rarely saw him. His long fingers gripping the handle firmly, but not too tight, his eyes ever leaving the blade, Erik sliced and hacked and diced with an admirable natural grace. Charles was sure, no matter how concentrated he looked, Erik was still paying attention to him, at least with half a mind. The first time Charles had walked into the kitchen while Erik was cooking after that day, Erik had cut his finger. After that, they had become accustomed to share the kitchen whenever Erik was cooking.

Before that day, when Erik had confessed to be the serial Charles had been hunting for years--in what Charles still thought of as an  overly dramatic fashion--Erik had only cooked at the weekends. Sometimes, he had come up with something quick and easy on weekdays, but that had been the exception.

Now, Erik cooked every day. Usually enough for there to be leftovers Charles could take to work with him on the next day. He slowly started missing fastfood. Charles blamed Erik’s sudden obsession with cooking on two reasons. One, since Erik was still on sick leave for the burns from having a house blow up around him, he had too much time on his hands every day. (Charles was secretly glad Erik hadn’t turned to daytime TV.) Two, now that he had promised he would never kill anyone again, Erik needed a new hobby. Apparently, he had found it in dismembering innocent vegetables. Or whatever you did with all the healthy stuff. Charles had never bothered to learn how to cook.

As Erik put the knife down, Charles returned to the file in front of him. He had started to bring more work home with him lately. He never felt well letting Erik out of his sight for more than five minutes. He trusted Erik to be true to his words, and yet, he couldn’t trust him enough. After all, Erik had been lying to him for years.

The case he was working on now was not even close to be as bad as some of the crime scenes Erik had left in his wake. A bucket filled with stones used as a pendulum came to Charles mind, for no reason at all. No, this case, albeit bloody, clearly lacked organization. The room had been a mess, just like the body had been too. The coroner’s report stated that the victim had died from multiple stab wounds. But as hard as they had looked, they had yet to come up with the murder weapon. It could be anything sharp and thin, that was all Charles knew.

“What’s bothering you?” Erik suddenly asked. He was leaning against the cabinet next to the stove on which a pan sizzled and another pot bubbled.

“Just a case,” Charles sighed. “I can’t figure out…” He blinked at Erik. He himself couldn’t find a murder weapon that fitted the wounds, but he didn’t have the experience Erik had. Charles had read the coroner’s reports on all the victims Erik had claimed to be his when he had put them into the case file for the murders committed by Max Eisenhardt. There were a lot of mysterious wounds nobody knew--or wanted to know--how they had been inflicted.

“Can you come over here for a second?” Charles asked. He went through the file and pulled out a couple of pictures and the coroner’s report. Erik walked over to him and peered over his shoulder, just when Charles was done arranging everything.

“What do you need me for?” Erik asked suddenly behind . Charles had to use all his self-control not to stab him with a pen. He was still jumpy around Erik when he couldn’t comfortably keep an eye on him.

“Can you tell me which weapon they used?” Charles pointed at the pictures.

Erik hummed deep in his throat. He took one of the pictures, then another, soon he slid on Charles’ lap to take a closer look at all the pictures. Finally, while Charles was still wondering whether or not her should wrap his arms around Erik’s waist, Erik put the pictures back down and sighed.

“Amateurs…” At Charles’ glare, Erik deigned to explain further, “It was either a very blunt and thin knife--which I doubt--or… er… you know those long hairpins some women use that look like tiny swords? That would fit. Maybe. But no real weapon in any case. Definitely something your murderer just grabbed and then attacked in the heat of the moment. There's no finesse whatsoever here."

Charles gave his husband a long, flat look.

"What?" Erik asked, shrugging and grinning with all his teeth. "You wanted my professional opinion."

"A simple 'it was a hairpin' would have sufficed," Charles huffed. "And you're sure about this?"

"A hundred percent, Detective. You should arrest his affair."

"Why his affair?"

"Because his wife could just have poisoned him. Or stabbed him in his sleep or something like that."

Charles nodded. As much as he hated to admit it, Erik was most likely right.

"So," Erik turned so he could wrap his arms around Charles. "Do I get a treat now? For all my help?"

Charles wasn't sure whether to give in or shove Erik off his lap. He always felt like this. It wasn't easy, loving Erik and yet knowing what he had done in his life. Charles often wondered why he even tried to forgive him, why he wanted to trust Erik again. Erik, truth to be told, never showed any remorse for what he had done. Most days when they talked about it--which wasn't very often as Erik never initiated these conversations and there were a lot of things Charles rather not knew about--he sounded like today, distanced and yet as if proud of what he'd done.

Charles decided on the easy way out, by sniffing the air and asking, "Does it smell burned in here?" That, at least, gave him enough time to pull himself together while Erik rescued their dinner. However it wasn't enough time to get over the casual way Erik had talked about this case.

To any entity that might listen, Charles prayed for Erik to always remember their deal. There was no way to tell what would happen if he broke it.

 

 


End file.
